Category: Politics

Here in the United States, the deadline for Voters Registration is rapidly approaching. This is your last chance to register to vote in the November 2 elections. It is vitally important that every concerned citizen register, and then carry through by voting. Do not let yourself be scared by stories of registrations being tossed out in Ohio or expected voting issues in Florida. If you don’t even try to register, none of that matters.

If you need help figuring out how and where to register, kottke.org has a nice page of information and useful links. If that’s too complicated, do a web search for “voters registration [insert your state here].” Rules may be a little complicated if you are a college student living in the dorms, so double check local requirements. If you have any questions about local rules, polling places, or whether you are already registered, add your county name to the search above and find the phone number of the local voters registration board.

Let me refute several common excuses:

I don’t want to be called for jury duty. Do you have a driver’s license? A telephone? Electricity service in your name? Then you may already at risk for being called to jury duty, depending where you live. If it really bothers you that much, bookmark this page of how legally to get out of serving on a jury.

It doesn’t matter how I vote anyway. There’s plenty of room for change in the electoral picture, as this graph shows. And that’s just the headliner. You’ve got a member of Congress to vote on, maybe a Senator, and a slate of State and local issues to vote on. Polls be damned, the voting booth is the one place your opinion really does matter. You may have “just one vote,” but that gets added in with everybody else’s just one vote. Ask your local voting officials or check your local newspaper for a voters guide of candidates and issues. You’ve got a month to study!

With my job schedule, I don’t have time to vote! Working twelve hour shifts, eh? If you seriously doubt you can leave for work a little early and vote on the way in, or get to the polls after work before they close, ask about an absentee ballot. Most states have liberalized their policies for such ballots. In fact, in some states with electronic voting, it has been suggested that absentee ballots at least have a paper trail.

I live on the West Coast. The election is long over by the time I can vote on the way home from work. By my count, Pacific Time Zone represents 78 electoral votes. Add another 7 for Alaska and Hawaii. This election may well be close enough that those 85 electoral votes are pivotal. But again, this attitude discounts the very important Congressional, State, and local issues every voter faces.

In short, if you do not vote, if you do not even bother registering to vote, people like me will have a hard time taking you seriously when you complain about the government, taxes, schools, roads, education, the environment, or the economy. Yeah, your vote impacts all that.

Please note that this post is free of partisan rhetoric. It is none of my business who you vote for, just vote.

Today, I saw for the first time a Bush campaign ad titled “Economic Agenda.” It is viewable on their website, if you have not already seen it. The substance of the ad was broken into convenient, numbered bullet points. If I may, I would like to address the specific issues listed. I promise to do this with a minimum of snark, in an attempt to raise the overall level of political discourse.

1. Lifelong Learning. That sounds great. Really. I am one of those people who would really love to follow the old maxim of “Learn something new every day.” Unfortunately, people who are paid to pay attention to such stuff say there’s no program to go with these words. In fact, a search for “Bush lifelong learning” reveals mostly comments from First Lady and former Librarian Laura Bush. What does lifelong learning mean, anyway? Does it mean continually training for the jobs of the future, whatever they may be? Until we have some idea what we are talking about, there is very little to say.

2. Invest in Education. Another “how can you disagree” sort of statement. Everyone except the most diehard Libertarians agrees that it is important to have adequate investment in education if we are to have workers who can do what needs to be done in the coming decades. And the President actually has something he can brag about in the realm of education, “No Child Left Behind.” Unfortunately, that’s one of those things that sounds better than it has worked out. Now, it has reached the point where high performing schools are finding themselves “Failing” under the federal standard of “better,” and are facing sanctions. It sure feels like the ultimate goal is to make schools ineligible for federal funds. I’ve spoken on education before.

3. New Skills for Better Jobs. That ties in nicely with the “lifelong learning” thing, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, training for a job does not guarantee that you will get a job doing what you have trained to do. What job training does, however, is get people temporarily out of the labor pool, and benefit publicly traded schools such as Corinthian Colleges, ITT, and DeVry. Remember, the official Department of Labor standard for being Unemployed is very, very narrow. I am not saying that there is no point in training for a new job, just that job training programs will not fix the fact that not enough jobs are being created. I have spoken on this far too many times to list them all.

4. Fairer and Simpler Tax Code. Actions speak louder than words. And so far the Bush Administration has said that complicated taxes are just fine (thank you, The Daily Mis-lead). Oh yeah, and he made sure that big SUVs are tax deductible for businesses. That brings us very nicely to his next bullet point….

5. Reduce Foreign Energy Dependance. Drilling holes in the Arctic isn’t going to fix the fact that we use too much oil, and burn too much coal. And frankly, the current administration has not done a whole lot to change that for the better. Clean air rules that were meant to phase out older, more polluting plants have been relaxed. Car milage standards have not been raised to levels that would reduce our need for foreign oil. There’s talk about alternative energy, but what about action? And the time for action is now, since at least one major oil company has announced that they just don’t have as much oil in the ground as they thought they did.

6. Fairer Trade. Another one of those phrases you would have to be some kind of nut-job to disagree with. Even John Kerry thinks fair trade is a good idea. President Bush clearly means “free and fair,” which might be different. Unfortunately, the price of the dollar is being used as a weapon in this quest for free, fair trade. And this has not had a positive effect on the American economy. It will be interesting to see what the two candidates have to say in their debates, and more interesting to see what the assorted columnists and other experts have to say about it.

7. Job Incentives. Um, the economy has lost a net 915,000 jobs during the Bush Administration. If there’s a brilliant idea, in the works, we could sure stand to hear it, maybe even do it. Better yet, let’s do it two years ago, since the administration has missed it’s own job creation targets for the last two years.

8. Comp/Flex Time. It is a bad idea. I have said this until I am blue in the face. It means your boss gets to work you as hard as he wants, pay you nothing extra, and promise to give you some time off someday, at his whim.

9. Strengthen Social Security. It seems like I just talked about this last week.

10. Legal Reform. President Bush talks about ending frivolous lawsuits. But what he means is capping damages. Damage caps would tell big businesses exactly how much money it will cost to break the law, harm people, and pollute the environment we all live in. If you think Big Chemical Co doesn’t dump dangerous carcinogens in your backyard because they are such good people, go ahead and lobby for damage caps. If you suspect that they follow the law because it’s cheaper than lawsuits, then caps are a bad idea. Of particular note, Vice-President Cheney’s former company, Halliburton, stands to gain quite a bit should damage caps be enacted.

11. Tax Relief. Again, that tired bit of political framing. Tax “relief” implies that taxes are onerous, that President Bush wants to rescue you from the IRS. He’s had 3 years to work on this. Are you better off? Have you benefitted from the rise in Estate Tax exemption from half a million dollars to a million and a half? Maybe you have benefitted from some of the other tax breaks? Don’t bet on it.

In closing, I love this chart of commonly used words at the two conventions. It sure looks like the Republicans think John Kerry is more important than Health Care.

When I was in school, way back in the Reagan Administration, we were taught that a Conservative was somebody who thought things were just fine as they were (or, as they used to be in the “good old days”) and that a Liberal was someone who thought there were things that could change for the better. That being the case, I would like to know where this idea of “Liberals Hate America” comes from.

Liberals do not hate America, but they think there are things that can be better. Liberals know that such issues as drug abuse, poverty, and homelessness cannot be fixed with platitudes and blaming the victim. They don’t think most people “were asking for it” when they became an addict, or a crime victim, or mentally ill, or a teenage single mother.

Liberals know that good jobs are important for everyone. They also know that a “good job” includes making enough money to live on, being as safe as possible at work, and certain expected benefits — including insurance and retirement assistance. Liberals believe that two people who do the same job — and do it just as well — should be paid the same. It shouldn’t matter what race, sex, nationality, or religion either of them is.

Liberals also understand that as important as continuing economic prosperity is, we only have one environment. We cannot live without it, and therefore we must be good stewards of it. They do not believe that the vast majority of industries will consistently do what is right for the good of the environment or for the good of mankind without rules that make them.

Liberals do not hate the Government, but they do not blindly follow the President just because he’s the President. They’re not into the whole “my country right or wrong” thing, but rather “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Liberals agree that Terrorism Is Bad. But they are not entirely sure how checking for home buyers’ names on lists of terrorists or pawing through commuter’s briefcases or absurd prosecutions help prevent terrorism. You might as well claim that terrorists were scared away by John Ashcroft’s uplifting song of praise, “Let the Eagles Soar.”

Which brings me to one final point. Liberals are not all a bunch of anti-Christian hedonists. They recognize that the same First Amendment that gives Christians of all sects the right to practice their religion more or less as they please — as long as they do not infringe on anybody else’s rights — is the same First Amendment that protects the rights of Jews, and Muslims, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and Sufis, and Zoroastrians, and yes, Wiccans. If you don’t like it, join the separatists. But don’t come crying to me if religious rule under Christians is almost as brutal as Muslim Sharia law.

Just maybe Liberals aren’t as evil as some people would have you believe.

The following is the draft of a letter I will be sending to the editorial staff of Alternet.

To Whom It May Concern:

As a regular reader of Alternet, I find myself insulted by the blatant sexist subtext of Lakshmi Chaudhry’s essay, “What John Kerry Needs: The Estrogen Factor.” I am not sure what I find more outrageous: the insinuation that the woman who pasted her head over Mrs. Edward’s picture is in any way “typical” of female voters; the description of women as “those creatures with breasts”; or pointing out that “the fact that Edwards ‘looks seriously hot’ while he’s making his pitch doesn’t hurt either.” Even John Edwards should be insulted by this message of “He’s more than just a pretty face.”

If your point is that Senator Edwards is able to effectively deliver a message of importance to female voters, please make that point and move on. Frankly, this article smacks of “Oh yes! Kerry should run with Edwards because he’s so dreeeeeamy!”

Don’t get me wrong, being charismatic is a huge asset to someone running for office. Dennis Kucinich can attest to this. He has great ideas but, well, looks so unpresidential. Senator Kerry would be wise to get some of Kucinich’s ideas on board, and perhaps even get the man himself on board helping make policy. However, if the Presidential race comes down to looks and charisma, perhaps we should completely sell out and consider Brad Pitt. Or maybe Harrison Ford — he has at least played the President in a movie. Don’t you think that would spice up the Vice-Presidential debates this fall?

If Senator Kerry wants women’s votes this fall, the key is not his Vice-Presidential candidate, but the issues. Talk to us about things that matter to us. Strangely enough, most of the things the female half of our population cares about effect the rest of the country too.

For example, everybody needs healthcare. And at this point, I think we can all agree it is expensive. Furthermore, I think anybody who has honestly looked at the issues understands that nothing President Bush has done has improved things.

How about food safety? We all eat food, don’t we? And choosy moms would like to know they aren’t feeding their kids mad-cow burgers, or otherwise dangerous food.

Don’t forget education. Education is a critical issue not only to moms, but to anybody who has employees, and anybody who wants to make sure America has a stable, productive economy in the future.

Oh, and don’t forget the price of oil and gas. Frankly, it is vitally important to everyone. It’s important to everyone who uses a vehicle to get to work or school. It’s important to small businesses. It’s important to big businesses. It’s important to the economy. It’s important to global security.

This is to say nothing of civil liberties (which we all have), the environment (which we all live in), inflation (it’s back!), and even the 40 hour work week (which still might be in danger).

John Edwards may well be the right man to be John Kerry’s running mate. However, it that is the case it is because of his stance on the issues, not “The Estrogen Factor.”

Bear with me. It seems the rest of the world has just recently discovered that electronic voting may not save democracy from oblivion after all, that sending personal information overseas may not be a good idea, that Congress may inadvertently make most networks illegal to prevent illegal file sharing (putting Time-Warner in the uncomfortable position of either defending their media copyrights or defending AIM and AOL chatrooms), and just because President Bush can dish out the Bible verses doesn’t mean he can take it.

But today, I’d like to talk to you about the patronizing attitude the current administration has about darn near everything. It has gone far beyond for-us-or-against-us my-way-or-the-highway attitudes about everything from Social Security to condoms. Outside input is neither solicited nor desired. Public statements have stopped just short of “Now, now, these are the advisors your elected President has selected and they know best.”

Would you like examples? We can go back to Dick Cheney’s claim that he does not have to release information about those Energy Task Force meetings because of executive privilege. If you’d like something more recent, try Condi Rice refusing to publicly testify under oath about September 11. This last instance is particularly hypocritical in light of her appearance on the news TV show 60 Minutes.

The Administration is even telling Republicans what they should say about the environment on the campaign trail. And it would seem they don’t like it. After all, they are elected officials too.

If you are unfamiliar with the ideas of George Lakoff, now is as good a time as any to become acquainted. One of his central theories is that conservatives in general work on a “strict father” model. The Boss/Dad/President is in charge, he knows best, you should do what he says. You wouldn’t dream of questioning items on Dad’s credit card bill; nor should you question your leaders who say we need to spend money on the special important project of the day. If you would like to learn more about this controversial fellow and his ideas, here is his official faculty page at UC Berkeley, assorted articles and interviews, and his Amazonography.

The “fat lady” is not singing.

Not yet anyway.

But that sound you hear is her accompanist’s overture.

John Kerry had a fabulous “Super Tuesday,” winning 9 of the 10 races. His closest opponent, John Edwards, has scheduled a 4 PM press conference at which he is almost universally expected to drop out of the race. Kerry is expected to be the Democratic Presidential Candidate. He is starting to talk about how he will pick the Vice Presidential Candidate. The international press is reporting that Kerry has won the candidacy.

But here’s the thing. Kerry hasn’t actually got the necessary delegates yet. As of this writing, he only has 1361 of the 2162 he needs to be officially anointed. It is true that the remaining candidates have less than 100 delegates combined. However, it is also true that before yesterday’s contests, Howard Dean still had more delegates than John Edwards. Dean, you probably recall, dropped out of the race weeks ago. At least he keeps his blog current. And speaking of Dean, guess who won the one Primary that Kerry did not take yesterday? Yes, that would be Howard Dean.

In fact, by my read of CNN’s handy chart of delegates, Kerry isn’t even quite the winner if all the delegates earned by candidates no longer in the race are released to support Kerry. Edwards and Dean are still in a position to force some of their opinions into the Party Platform.

This also means that Bush will have to actually spend time worrying about campaigning, spending from his vast war-chest, as opposed to “looking presidential” in the Rose Garden. The TV blitz starts right about….. now.

Kerry had better be ready to talk about job creation, offshoring, the weak dollar, Social Security, and schools.

Oh, and he’d better be ready to go on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show,” “Where more Americans get their news than probably should.” Maybe even consider a blog.

There is still time to write your Senator. If you are too lazy, use this handy form.

It seems that the Omnibus Spending Bill has yet to pass the Senate, let alone be signed by the President. How ironic that our elected officials can let something as important as funding most non-military functions of the United States slide until after the holidays. No rush, after all, this spending bill is for the 2004 fiscal year — which started October 1, 2003. The irony is that this spending bill would effectively eliminate overtime as we know it, allowing your boss to make you work as long as he likes, only pay you for 40 hours per week, and make a vague promise to give you some free time within the next year or so at his whim. Anybody who says this is good for families is either lying or not thinking about it. This isn’t even good for the economy, since it provides disincentive to hire more workers, and doesn’t put any more money in the pockets of the existing workers who are theoretically boosting productivity.

But wait! There’s more! As a bonus, 80,000 people would stop receiving unemployment benefits effective December 21, 2003. Merry Christmas. Scrooge would indeed be proud.

Don’t like beans? Sample some of the pork then. There is plenty to go around. Start with hundreds of millions for FBI information technology, prison construction, and a “classified defense department project.” There are tens of millions of dollars for such projects as a voucher system for Washington, DC public school students to attend private school (you know what I think of that), an indoor rain forest in Iowa, and increased border patrols. Mere millions for youth golf programs, a police athletic league, the “International Fertilizer Development Center” and “an international narcotics control law enforcement academy in Roswell, NM.” Hundreds of thousands are made available for lubricant research, shopping centers, traffic lights, museum construction, special interest groups, documentary film production, “streetscaping,” trout genome mapping, a ballet school, and similar projects you would think could raise money on the local level. This enterprising Congressman managed to rake in $34 million for one county alone. That’s over 25% what the entire State of Utah managed to haul in. I guess pork is only bad when it’s in somebody else’s district.

Of course, Senator Reid is quick to point out that part of the problem is the various measures that the President insisted must be in this bill. Pardon me for pointint out that the President does not write legislation, he just signs or vetoes it. Oh wait, Mr. Bush has yet to veto a single thing.

This thing is so bad nobody likes it. Unions don’t like it. School administrators don’t like it. Liberals don’t like it. Fiscal conservatives don’t like it. And the ink is barely dry on the darn thing. If past legislation is any example, yet more egregious abuses of tax dollars may yet be discovered in its pages.

I bet the best job this bill creates will be as a golf pro.

If I could please direct your attenion away from The Saddam Hussein Show for a few moments? We can talk about whether this really means closure for the Iraqi people and better security in Iraq and maybe even actual democratic process once the dust settles. Give it a few weeks to see whether we have struck the head of the snake or created a rallying point.

Instead, I’d like to point out something that has broad implications for the future of government right here in the United States of America. Everybody remembers what a mess the 2000 Presidential elections were, particularly in Florida, right? And everybody remembers that despite the screams for abolishing the Electoral College, the one reform that really had any momentum was updating actual voting equipment. Never mind poorly laid out ballots, ignore people whose right to vote was taken away because they were wrongly put in a database of known felons. These people probably still have problems getting on a commercial aircraft.

To make a long story short, electronic voting systems are effectively mandated. Doesn’t that sound great? No guesswork, simple, almost effortless vote tallying, final results available within 5 minutes of the polls closing. What could be better?

Well unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. With traditional voting there are several points where things can go wrong: verifying that the person in the polling place is a legal, registered voter as opposed to a felon or someone voting on behalf of the dead; making sure one votes as one has intended; making sure all the ballots make it into the system and are counted properly; you get the picture. Some of these things can be fixed with an electronic system and some cannot.

There are 3 separate points of potential security and integrity failure that are peculiar to electronic systems: veracity of votes (the system is not “stuffing the ballot box”); security of the hardware (it cannot be “hacked” or otherwise altered); auditability of the system (ability to recount). Ability to recount independently of hitting the “count votes” button on the system is important so we can double check the first two points of potential failure. We cannot count on the computer to give us complete, comprehensible information.

All of these factors have come under scrutiny and been the subject of much debate both among political types and technical types. One of the easiest, although not the cheapest, is for the system to provide a printed voter receipt, which the voter checks for accuracy, then puts in the same locked ballot box that they have always used for the paper ballot. This obvious step, however, has encountered resistance. Sorry to say it, but the paperless ballot is no more practical than the paperless office.

If you ever want to be confident that your elected officials have indeed been elected, you must support legislation proposed on the state and federal level to mandate paper receipts. A particularly good one appears to have been proposed by Senator Graham of Florida (how’s that for irony) which would ban black box systems, ban wireless systems, require random surprise recount/audits, and have everything in place by next November’s Presidential elections. Senator Barbara Boxer appears to have other ideas about what a paper receipt for voting machines act would encompass.

You know what to do.

“Context is Everything.” That was the favorite saying of a former professor and academic advisor I had. The first day I met him, my first day on campus as a fresh-faced youngster, he attempted to talk me out of my major. I rather resented it at the time. I gradually came to understand his thinking, and wish that instead of something so heavy-handed, he’d suggested a minor in another subject.

So please consider the context when you read that Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force discussed Iraqi oil-field contracts (as well as some in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.) when they met in early 2001. The subject of much debate and legal wrangling, these records were formally requested by Congress on April 19, 2001. That happens by sheer coincidence to be the 8th anniversary of the Branch Davidian Fire in Waco, and the 6th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. More than two years after the fact, after a great deal of moaning about executive privilege and more than one court date, some of the requested information has finally surfaced. The fact that there were records to subpoena means the meetings took place before April 19, 2001, two years before the American led invasion and “liberation” of Iraq.

Remember early 2001? That was before there was a Department of Homeland Defense. Indeed, that was before the New York City skyline met with violent change. Iraq was, despite occasional grumbling, a dead issue. We were officially in a recession (but be of good cheer, it’s supposed to be over now). Seattle was cleaning up from a magnitude 6.8 earthquake. Bush finished his first hundred days in office at the end of April. Indeed, people were still wondering if, in the end, he was duly elected. The big chair in the Oval Office wasn’t even warm yet when the subpoena arrived. No Child Left Behind was still a pipe dream. An American spy plane was captured by China. It would be most of a year before Ashcroft spent $8000 of taxpayer money to cover a statue entitled “Spirit of Justice” allegedly because it displayed bare bosoms, forcing the civilized world to wonder if he had ever so much as driven past an art museum. It was still acceptable to have no revenues and give product away for free, or even sell product at a terrible loss, as long as your company had “.com” in its name. Indeed, that was before the California energy crisis, resulting in astronomical prices and rolling blackouts — please pay in advance for unreliable power. Enron was considered a nice, stable, energy company despite the fact that they would declare bankruptcy by the end of the year. British cattle herds were being decimated by “foot-and-mouth disease.” Kids sucking down sugary sodas was linked to obesity. The human genome was newly mapped. The Code Red virus was months away.

So, if I may be so bold as to ask, why exactly were Dick Cheney, Ken Ley, and their handpicked crew of cronies talking about divvying up Iraqi oil contracts? And should King Fahd worry that his people are to be “liberated” next?